Sloshing White Wine

On the way back from the New Vrindavan community, A and I decided to spend the night in Morgantown. The original plan was to get some rest at the hotel where we were staying, and then go party with the college-aged knuckleheads in "dowtown Morgantown." We ended up getting buzzed at the hotel bar, called the Rat Pack Lounge. It ended up being the right decision, by a mile.

You know those nature shows where the filmmaker sets up a camera on some plain or mountainside waiting for something to happen. Fifty-five minues of the show will be a lot of less interesting animals and regret. Just as the filmmaker is about to pack up the camera and head home, there it is: the snow leopard.

Our snow leopard turned out to be Trish.

A and I had been having a serious discussion fueled by rum (her), beer (me) and greasy, grossly oversized appetizers. The spinach and artichoke dip came out in a bucket, and you were supposed to eat it with what appeared to be full-sized baguettes. We thought they must have mistaken our order for a room service order placed by an elephant staying in Room 315.

The yawns started coming, fueled in part by the guitarist/singer who insisted in playing James Taylor (boring) and Jimmy Buffett (lame) songs. He was putting the whole house to sleep.

Then, came Trish and her friends. I only remember the name of one of them, Kelly. Kelly was celebrating her 40th birthday, and the crew hit the Rat Pack Lounge with a vengeance. There may have been five or fifteen of them. Outside of Trish and Kelly, the rest of the crew were ciphers. They stormed up to the bar and ordered glasses of white wine.

I don't know what it is about women and white wine. Women drinking white wine weird me out in the same way women who wear hats do. It is like white wine is the safe, lady-like way to get hammered. I always find it amusing when I hear some woman say, "I'll have the Pinot Grigio." Like it matters. White wine tastes like cold wine. ("Do you taste the pear?" "No, I taste the cold"). Red wines tend to be far more complex.

This friend once told me that you can tell if a women is down for hooking up, in general or with you, by the way she holds a glass of wine. If she is touching the stem of the wine glass, its yours.

Trish was cupping the the top part of the glass and guzzling the wine in between "woo-hoos" and requests to the singer/guitarist. Trish was unsteady; the white white sloshed over the edges of the glass. The message she was sending, other than she is getting DRUNK tonight, was unclear.

Eventually Trish and the gals got up to the front and started doing karaoke with the singer/guitarist. When Trish and the gang started to sing "Brown Eye Girl," A and I made sure to get in at least one more drink order. We had to see what was going to happen next.

From what I could tell, Trish was in her early to mid-thirties. She didn't seem to be wearing a wedding ring. She was moderately attractive, definitely the best looking woman in her crew. As she started to do some sort of snakey, convulsive dancing to "Only The Good Die Young," I wondered if she got much attention as a kid. Whether she did a similar dance in front of her father, who dismissed her nonsense with a grunt and a long drag off a Winston.

Right next to A and I was this guy who was watching Trish and the girls. He was by himself, nursing a scotch. Occaisionally he'd look at his phone, but mostly he watched the ladies do their thing.

I turned to A and said, "If his game is tight, he'll probably end up with Trish. If its not, he's still got a good chance with the off-key big girl next to her."

A and I ended up heading up to the room with a glass of wine (Cabarnet; I am not a hypocrite) each for a nightcap. But, we couldn't stop thinking about Trish. As we drank the Cab, we wondered what was going to happen to Trish.

I said,"You know she's going to wake up, hung over and naked in that guy's room tomorrow morning. And she's going to say to herself, Oh no, not again. Not again."